Contract talks between the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and the U.S. Postal Service for a new contract start Thursday. Along with asking for fair wages and benefits, the APWU wants improvements in customer services, including postal banking.

The conservative anti-government strategy is to set government up to fail (usually by starving it of funding). Then they point to the resulting "crisis" they created and say that it proves that government doesn't work and that we should therefore "privatize" it. Now they're coming for the U.S. Postal Service.

Now that the Republican Party -- the conservative voice in mainstream U.S. electoral politics -- has attained the most thoroughgoing control of Congress that it has enjoyed since 1928, it's an appropriate time to take a good look at modern conservatism.

By the time you read this, Congressional Republicans will have overwhelmingly voted to violate one of their most cherished guiding principles: A service should be paid for by those who use the service.

In a saga comparable to Bleek House, Charles Dickens' classic novel about a legal case that would never end, Bill Moore, a Texas businessman, has waged his own never-ending legal war against the United States government.

Does anyone actually still believe the words "trickle-down theory" have any valid meaning? Is anyone buying into this fiction that increasing the minimum wage would ruin our economy but multi-million dollar executive salaries don't increase prices at all?

There were many signs of change at this week's ceremony in the Old Executive Office building to roll out the new forever stamp honoring Harvey Milk. But as I watched I thought of another, overlooked sign of change. Fifty years ago, the U.S. Post Office, was actively working to suppress that movement.

What's at stake is not just the jobs of postal workers; it's the American economy. We built the economy with middle-class jobs and the more we destroy them, the bleaker the prospects of economic prosperity for all but the richest of us.

The federal government has a history of intervening to provide important services not offered by the private sector. And with a gap in the financial services arena for low- to moderate-income Americans, the U.S. Postal Service is a great fit to meet this demand.

The Internet has facilitated immeasurable connectivity between people in any country around the world, and furthered just about everything that I can think of. It has spawned a barrier-free world of information for people to connect and collaborate at will, propelled largely by a desire among humans to share ideas, passions, goals and experience.